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First of all, is this correct? Secondly, on my new iMac I could do either of the above. However, in theory I wouldn't necessarily have a copy of Snow Leopard or the USB stick. So, as far as Apple are concerned, if your hard drive goes and you don't have AppleCare, how are you supposed to get the latest version of OS X on there if it's only available from the App Store?

The new Mac has a recovery partition, this will download the OS and install. You have identified an issue that has me quite irritated with Apples new OS delivery philosophy. I believe you can download the install image, and make a USB as with purchased versions (I do not know, as I have machines that came prior to Lion, with Lion, and with Mountain Lion.. so I have purchased Mountain Lion from the App Store previously anyway.. and built a USB install).

You can not, in any way, install Snow Leopard on Macs that came out after it's withdrawal. Full stop.

That is how to make the USB installer when you have Mountain Lion. Snow Leopard will not install on a new iMac. As a rule of thumb no going backwards for operating systems. You should be running a backup drive. A FW800 external drive cloned with SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner will fill the bill. The external will be bootable if you have an emergency.

On the release of OS X.9, reportedly next month maybe at WWDC, if you update then use the Lion DiskMaker procedure.

Hang on to those original install discs like grim death! Using OS X.7 or later make a bootable USB thumb drive before running Installer!